Oil prices continue to rise in part because the demand for oil continues to grow, while stable sources of oil are becoming scarcer. Oil companies continue to develop new tools for generating data from boreholes with the hope of leveraging such data by converting it into meaningful information that may lead to improved production, reduced costs, and/or streamlined operations.
Borehole imagery is a major component of the wireline business (for example, Schlumberger's FMI™, Formation MicroScanner, OBMI™ Tools), and an increasing part of the logging while drilling business (for example, Schlumberger's GeoVision™, RAB Resistivity-at-the-Bit, ARC5 Array Resistivity Compensated tools). While borehole imagery provides measurements containing abundant data about the subsurface, it remains a challenge to extract the geological and petrophysical knowledge contained therein. Yet, accurately characterizing the natural fracture porosity of a hydrocarbon reservoir is an essential step to assessing its productivity index and quantity of oil therein.